Pennhurst represents conscience and change in care for the disabled

An analysis of the under-preservation of historic sites that represent the accomplishments of minority groups and women brings to mind another under-represented group and a controversial site in the tri-county area: the developmentally disabled and the former Pennhurst State School and Hospital.

Pennhurst is among the most important historical properties in the nation representing the history, struggles and change in attitude toward the developmentally disabled.

And instead of preserving and protecting its legacy, the home was allowed two years ago to become a Halloween attraction. The buildings which once housed developmentally disabled children and adults at a time when “warehousing” was the standard of care have become the centerpiece for a seasonal attraction with actors and props creating a horror story of a haunted asylum.

Instead, the site should be preserved to recognize those who suffered conditions there as well as the landmark change the closing of the institution brought.

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Opened in 1908 on 1,400 rolling acres as the Eastern Pennsylvania Institution for the Feeble Minded and Epileptic, Pennhurst was a self-sustained campus of 25 buildings that included workshops, a firehouse, a fully functioning farm and a barbershop, among other things, according to the Pennhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance.

Intended to isolate its residents from the rest of society, it housed 3,500 patients at its peak occupancy in space that federal regulations later determined to be habitable for just 700 people.

When media reports in 1968 brought the plight of Pennhurst patients to the attention of the nation, it sparked a series of lawsuits which culminated in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found institutionalization of disabled people to be unconstitutional.

Now regarded as the epicenter for the modern disability rights movement, Pennhurst closed in 1986 and its remaining 460 patients were discharged or transferred to other facilities.

The Preservation Alliance had Pennhurst named as an “International Site of Conscience, part of a worldwide network of ‘Sites of Conscience’ — historic sites specifically dedicated to remembering past struggles for justice and addressing their contemporary legacies,” according to the group’s website.

Nathaniel Guest founded the group and is also teaching two classes on “the ethics of preservation” at Cornell University.

He said that like the stories of the roles minorities and women played in the nation’s history, the story of the intellectually and developmentally disabled people who lived at Pennhurst is one that must be preserved — and preserving some part of Pennhurst is the best way to do it.

Ironically, Guest thinks the controversy surrounding the haunted attraction at Pennhurst may have been what was needed to spur preservation.

Guest said the owner of the property is “open to preservation” being done there and added that he presented the owner with a copy of a 2011 Urban Partners analysis.

The Alliance “hopes that a portion of the property will be used as a Center for Conscience, to preserve the lessons and stories of those forced to live at Pennhurst,” according to “Pennsylvania At Risk,” which added that the Alliance “hopes to create a modest memorial and museum on the campus, while reusing the property in a manner that provides economic and environmental benefits to the region.”

Pennhurst was a part of this region’s economy, its landscape and its conscience for much of the 20th century. Its impact on the rights of the developmentally disabled and its role as a turning point in the protection of those rights makes it deserving as a place to be remembered, as a “site of conscience,” in the words of the Preservation Alliance.

Like other sites that should be preserved for their role in the history of minorities, this site’s role should be memorialized.

Pennhurst should be preserved in honor of the innocents who were isolated there and in tribute to the change its closing represented.